Running Times’s Long Run

After 39 years, RT will no longer exist as a stand-alone magazine. But its attention to the dedicated runner will live on in Runner's World.

Desi Linden graced the cover of the January/February issue of Running Times, its last.

In December, Rodale, which publishes Runner’s World, made the tough decision to cease publication of Running Times. Some RT readers have expressed their disappointment and dismay on social media or in online forums. A few wrote to me directly. I hear you. I also loved Running Times, and miss it already. But I do believe that Runner’s World is strong and inventive enough to continue serving all runners—from the front of the pack to the back.

The truth is that RW never excluded fast, competitive, highly dedicated runners, even when Running Times was speaking to them more deeply and directly. And if I’ve learned anything while poring over back issues of RW over the past several months to plan our 50th anniversary coverage, it’s that the magazine has evolved over and over again during the past five decades, from its founding in 1966 as Distance Running News, a black-and-white, staple-bound monthly that was heavy on race results, to its merger with The Runner in 1985, to its current embrace of running not only as a competitive sport for superfit diehards (although it is that), but also as a fitness and, yes, social activity that empowers people of all shapes and sizes. Runner’s World has always adapted to changes in the running world at large—appropriately so. Now that Running Times has unfortunately folded, RW will once again widen its lens a bit—another f-stop or two, for you photography buffs—starting in February on the website and with the March magazine issue.

Online, where RT existed as a section of RunnersWorld.com, we’ve created a new section called RW Advanced that will contain the same articles and information RT readers have used for years to become stronger and faster runners. Other topics that were part of RT online, such as masters, high school, and college running, will remain topics on RunnersWorld.com. And all of that content will be available on the former RT social media accounts and in the former RT monthly newsletter—all of which have been renamed RW Advanced.

In the March issue’s Personal Best section, we debut a new department called “Next Level,” which focuses on a single runner’s breakout performance (in March, Tim Ritchie’s 1:01:23 half marathon), and the workouts and training techniques that led to it. The idea is to help you not only appreciate remarkable achievements but also glean something that may improve your own running life. We continue this approach in “Running with the Gods,” profiles of six unsponsored Olympic Marathon Trials qualifiers who cram elite-level training between full-time jobs and family responsibilities. We also share their key workouts and advice for running on tired legs or holding race pace when you’re suffering—acknowledging that many of you have a race pace to begin with and train very, very hard to achieve your own “Olympic” goals.

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David Willey is the editor-in-chief of Runner's World. Follow him on Twitter @dwilleyRW.